What does rekt mean?

Have you seen someone write “I got rekt” under a chart that’s tumbling? They usually mean “I got wiped out” or, more colloquially, “I fell flat on my face.” The word is a variant of “wrecked”, meaning destroyed, and is also used in video game communities for a crushing defeat.

In crypto, picture someone who puts €1,000 into a token and watches its value drop to €200. They may describe themselves as rekt, even if they haven’t sold. Someone else may use the same word because they lost money in a scam. There’s no specific loss percentage that serves as the threshold for the label.

The expression also shows up often in leveraged trading, where someone opens a position larger than the capital they put up as collateral. If the market moves far enough against them, the position may be forcibly closed, i.e. liquidated, with a large loss of the collateral.

Why it matters

If you read community discussions, the word helps you catch the tone: sometimes it’s self-deprecation, sometimes mockery and sometimes a description of real financial hardship. “Shorts got rekt” usually means that those holding positions that profit from a decline took big losses when the price went up.

We find it useful to separate the joke from the mechanism of the loss. A drop in a token’s value, a liquidated position and theft from a wallet can all be described with the same word, but they are different situations.

What to watch out for

Rekt isn’t a technical indicator or a precise financial term. A post saying “the whole market got rekt” may simply be exaggerating. You need to look at what actually happened, rather than conclude that everyone lost their money.

Also, a liquidation doesn’t necessarily mean losing your entire account. The extent of the loss depends on the platform’s terms and on whether the collateral covers only that specific position or is shared with other positions.